


Coffee is Coming

by Aellax



Category: A Song of Ice and Fire - George R. R. Martin, Game of Thrones (TV)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Coffee Shops & Cafés, Alternate Universe - Modern Setting, F/F, Fluff, Swearing
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2019-07-22
Updated: 2019-07-26
Packaged: 2020-07-10 11:01:52
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 2
Words: 2,295
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/19904665
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Aellax/pseuds/Aellax
Summary: Sansa Stark is the Assistant Manager of her family's coffee shop. She's just graduated from university, and has yet to figure everything out for herself. Then a stunningly beautiful stranger(?) walks into the shop and makes her question everything.





	1. Cinnamon Chip

Sansa leaned on the counter and let out a great sigh. Training new employees was a strain on the worst of days, but putting her baby brother through orientation?

“Oi, Sansa! What does this button do?”

Before she could explain that the particular button did not actually do anything, Rickon had pushed it anyway.

“Sansa,” Rickon whined, pressing the button repeatedly. “I think it’s broken.”

“It’s doing exactly what it was meant to,” Sansa replied, barely holding her shit together after two hours of this nonsense. If this wasn’t her brother, she would have suggested that Robb fire the newest recruit at Stark’s Coffee is Coming Cafe. A family business really meant that the whole family could get involved if they were interested.

Walking Rickon through the point of sale system again, Sansa wondered whether she would have to train Arya again when she inevitably asked Dad for money. “It’s like clockwork,” she murmured, recalling that the six month mark since Arya’s last quitting was coming up.

“Cock work?” Rickon echoed way too loudly, mashing at the button to open the cash drawer. “Big words coming from the Ass Man.”

“No! Don’t act like a goober with customers around,” Sansa said, gripping at the counter’s edge to keep herself from considering tying up Rickon to leave him in the back room for a few hours. “If I have to tell you or Arya that it’s Assistant Manager one more ti-”

Someone else clearing their throat made Sansa and Rickon look away from the register. “Not to make things awkward, but I’m a little crunched for time and one of your mochas would save my afternoon.”

Robb always told Sansa that it was way too easy to know she was feeling purely based on facial and body language, so she was sure that this gorgeous stranger thought her a frantic fool already.

“Yes, of course,” Sansa said, gently pushing her 14 year old brother away from the register. “Anyway, what can I get for you? B-besides the mocha of course.”

You’re such an idiot, Sansa Stark, she told herself. No wonder you can’t get anybody to listen to you.

“Mmm, let’s see.” The customer twirled a perfect curl around one finger, and then let it spring back into place. “I’ve heard your scones are dynamite. Which flavor do you recommend?”

Wasn’t she supposed to be in a hurry? Sansa thought to herself. Aloud, she suggested. “Cinnamon chip, all day, every day.” The scones weren’t her favorite dessert ever, but she had definitely gotten through her sophomore year of college all-nighters thanks to those.

“Can’t argue with that logic. Two, of those, then. That’s all for me, thanks.”

Sansa found herself hoping that the second scone wasn’t supposed to be for the customer’s probably handsome boyfriend or something. She fought to keep up that customer service smile, though, and punched everything into the register. “That’ll be $10.17, please. And could I have your name?”

“Margaery... It’s hard to get the spelling right, so you can just take my business card.”

That seemed a little weird to Sansa, but she wasn’t complaining about getting to know more about her new crush. She accepted the business card and exact change, and watched Margaery drop a couple bucks in the tip bucket.

“Thanks so much, Miss Margaery,” Rickon shouted, reaching across the counter to try to grab for those tips.

“Yes, thank you so much.” Sansa swatted at Rickon’s hand instinctively. She weighed the options of how to get this drink made and the register watched. Going through the process of making the drink, she instructed, “Rickon, warm up the scones like I showed you, then stand by the register and don’t do anything stu- that I didn’t train you to do.”

Rickon grinned, but it was his scheming grin. Every few seconds, Sansa glanced up to make sure that her brother had not burnt the place down. To her relief, Rickon’s smirk faltered- probably because he could not figure out a way around that order.

Sansa finished up drink prep, and took a look at the business card to see if she could get the spelling right. Luckily this was the slow part of the day so she could print ‘Margaery’ on the cup perfectly. Satisfied with her handiwork, she snagged the warmed pastries from Rickon, and handed over the scones, coffee, and business card.

“Thanks,” Margaery said, accepting the scones. “You can keep that card, though. Never know when you might need it.”

With a wink that made Sansa’s chest feel too tight and her head start to spin, the customer left.

“What the fuck was that?” Rickon, of course, had to be annoying at all times.

“You know mom hates it when you swear, goober.” Sansa, of course deflected the situation. “But anyway, can you stop pretending like you don’t already basically know how to use the register? You’ve been lurking around back here since you were, like... I don’t even know.”

Rickon shrugged, and leaned over to look at the business card. “Tyrell Supply Company... That sounds super familiar.”

“What?” Sansa snatched the card up. “They’re our biggest coffee bean supplier. It says she’s the VP of Operations, but she’s like, probably my age.”

“What the fuuuuuck,” Rickon said obnoxiously. “Why is she going around giving out business cards and pretending that she isn’t one of our clients or some stupid shit?”

Sansa had to ask herself the same question. What the fuuuuuck, indeed.


	2. Game of Folding Chairs

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> The Chamber of Commerce meeting gets derailed by bureaucratic struggles, and it's up to Sansa to save it.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This chapter has been brought to you by Australian reality television programming and zero coffee. Because I ironically can't handle caffeine despite being a sucker for coffee shop AUs.

Sansa heard the not-distant-enough sound of glass breaking, and ignored it. Even if this was her family’s coffee shop, she still needed her government-mandated break time. She was the Assistant Manager... as in... the assistant to whoever needed to take responsibility at all times.

“Sansa.” The voice disrupting her break time belonged to Podrick Payne, and he only said much when something was wrong. 

“What broke?”

“Sansa, your Dad’s on the main line, and he sounds super worried.”

That made Sansa look up, sigh about her dad forgetting how to text again, and then walk to the breakroom’s main line. “What’s up, Dad?”

“The Chamber of Commerce meeting was supposed to start fifteen minutes ago,” Ned Stark informed her.

Pressing her lips together, Sansa wondered why her dad was pointing out obvious knowledge. “Okay?”

“The sept we were going to use double-booked the space with a thank-you lunch for some firefighters,” Ned explained, and Sansa could imagine him putting his head in his hands. “Robert insisted that we find a new space immediately, and I volunteered the shop’s breakroom.”

Sansa thought it likely that Robert suggested the space and her dad had gone along with it, but did not state this. “How many people?”

“Thirty-seven.”

That made her hesitate. “I think Mother of Coffee is down the block. I’ll see if they’d be willing to let us borrow their folding chairs.”

“Thanks, Sansa. I am really sorry about this. We’ll be there in about ten.”

“Don’t worry about it, Dad. We’ll make it work, but gotta go, we have no parking, see you soon.”

She was starting to realize just how difficult it would be to pull this off in such a short amount of time... without help, that is. Speed-walking into the administrative office without knocking, Sansa started to speak immediately.

“Mom, Bran... The Chamber people are going to be meeting here in like 10 minutes. Can you make sure the junk gets cleared out of the breakroom and that there’s coffee for them to self-serve? I’m getting chairs from the Em-Oh-Cee truck. No time to explain.”

Sansa turned on her heel, and speed-walked right into the door jamb.

Bran started to wheel over to her, but she waved him off, cradling her head in her hand. "No time... to explain!”

Wishing that she wasn’t so responsible, she returned to her speed-walking. First stop: throwing some cones in the empty parallel parking space. Second stop: all the way down the block. Luckily, by the time she made it to her destination, the pain in her head had subsided. It was quite possible, however, that her pain was being masked by all of the rest of what she had to worry over.

“Dany! Hey,” Sansa called out, waving as she came within sight of the busy coffee truck.

“Oh boy. What’s happening that brings a Stark all the way out here?” Daenerys asked, waving for one of the workers in her truck to replace her position in taking orders.

“We need your chairs,” Sansa said faintly, feeling pretty out of breath by now. “Please?”

“Uh... You have ample seating in your brick and mortar establishment. Why would I let you use our chairs?”

Sansa got down on her knees to beg (mostly because she was very exhausted). “There’s going to be like thirty small business owners in our breakroom. Please... You can park in front of the shop for three days and your customers can sit in our shop.”

“A week.”

“What? Park in front for a week?”

“Yeah. Just during lunch rush, but it’s a week or nothing.”

Sansa mulled it over. “And we can borrow all of your chairs?”

“For all of today, sure. You seem like you’re in a hurry, though?”

“A week of seating plus a pastry today and tomorrow for each of your employees if you can drive over now,” Sansa offered, mentally ticking down how many minutes she didn’t have.

Daenerys nodded thoughtfully to herself for a moment, and then agreed, “Done. Get in.”

Sansa followed where Daenerys’ thumb pointed, grabbing some empty folding chairs on the way up. She watched as Daenerys’ operation shuttered up temporarily, and the customers were directed to follow the Mother of Dragon coffee truck down the block where they would enjoy seating and free wi-fi.

The woman driving the truck, Missandei, looked like she was trying not to laugh at the traffic cones that Sansa had previously set up to reserve the space. Saving her from shame, a guy named Grey helped her get the cones out of the way so Missandei could park. While the driver took care of that, Grey and Daenerys helped her shuttle in the ten folding chairs through the back entrance.

Sansa sighed in relief, when she saw that her mom and Podrick were almost done setting up the refreshment table, and the room looked a lot better. Daenerys and Grey unfolded the chairs, and then leaned against one of the walls. Frowning slightly, Sansa waved over Podrick.

“Hey, thanks for your help,” she told him, nudging the chairs around. “Can you get four pastries for these guys? Whatever they want.”

Podrick nodded, and Sansa watched him silently guide the coffee people out of the breakroom. She had just about gotten the chair arrangement how she wanted when her father and most of the Westeros Chamber of Commerce filed in.

Sansa smiled when her dad mouthed a ‘thank you’ and her brother Robb gave her a thumbs up. Not content to leave the situation to fester, Sansa started to usher some of the guests into the breakroom. There was not quite enough seating for everyone, but she assumed that that creepy Baelish guy and some of the others would stand ominously in the corners.

Unfortunately, Cersei Lannister was not one of those content to do without a chair. Sansa ushered Cersei and her probably-less-terrible brother Jaime to one of the tables.

“We’ve been here before, Sansa,” Cersei said, trying to break free of Sansa’s guidance. The last Chamber of Commerce meeting like this had been nearly four years ago, though, and Sansa was just trying to be nice... “Ugh, Jaime, these chairs are atrocious. Our facilities would never be in this state.”

Pressing her lips together, Sansa decided that being ignored by the mom of her high school ex (a mistake) was not so bad. There were less-bratty businesspeople to show around.

And that was how she found herself face to face with Margaery Tyrell again. Well, no. She was about half a foot taller than Margaery, but Sansa still felt small and pathetically gay.

“Sansa, right?”

“I still have your card,” Sansa said, as if she had not fantasized about their ideal second conversation for ages. “I... hoped you liked the scone.”

Margaery bit down on her lower lip, and Sansa worried that this beautiful woman was going to laugh at her. “I did! It wasn’t at all what I would have picked, but that makes it all the more interesting. And that’s your favorite dessert?”

“That we make. I’m kind of a sucker for lemon cakes, but we can’t put them in stock because I’ll try to buy them all for myself.” Sansa was horrified at how many personal anecdotes that she was ready to share with this near-stranger. With her luck, said stranger probably didn’t even like women. Not that Sansa was exactly... out. It hadn’t come up before with most people. She was working on it. Really.

The smile Margaery produced made Sansa nearly melt. “Funnily enough, my brother just brought back some delicious lemon cake from this chic bakery.”

Sansa had no idea how to respond to that. “I’m so jealous,” she said, showing Margaery a seat.

“There’s more than enough for Loras, his beau, and I to overindulge. Are you working now?”

Momentarily forgetting how to breathe, Sansa nodded. “I’ll be available at five tonight?”

Taking the seat, Margaery grinned. “Text me when you’re off work, and I’ll pick you up. You’re not coming to this stuffy meeting, are you?”

It was at that moment that Cersei loudly stated, “This mind’s like a steel trap... Now what was I just saying?” 

“I’ll text you later,” Sansa said, just about running out of the breakroom and back to work.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Mother of Coffee serves extremely strong coffee drinks like "The Unburnt" (curiously powerful and spicy espresso) and many flat whites with dragon art. They also do that trendy thing where you put liquid nitrogen with large spherical cereal so it looks like you're a dragon breathing smoke when you eat it.
> 
> It's a thing, I swear.


End file.
